


Thirty Minutes

by crystallines



Series: Clean Slate [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drabble, I am so sorry, M/M, warnings for implications of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:32:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5617000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystallines/pseuds/crystallines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It shouldn’t be like this, he thinks. He would give everything to see a million sunrises with Luke. <i>It shouldn’t be like this.</i> (<a href="http://ethanakamura.tumblr.com/post/136490336536/">x</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirty Minutes

Ethan expects Luke to give up after the scene at the arena, but he… _doesn’t._

Actually, he does the exact opposite.

He tries again. And again. And again.

Every. Single. Day. 

It places an extra strain on their already straining friendship–if you could _call_  it a friendship, anyway. Luke looks for Ethan, finds him, and each time, it begins with more or less the same statement: “It _has_  to be you.”

And each time, Ethan responds with a sneer and a, “Tough luck, then.” 

Then he takes to _avoiding_  Luke; he can’t take any more of it, can’t take Luke’s pleading expression and pleading gold-flecked eyes and uncharacteristically pleading tone. He can’t take any more of it, the coercing, the _pleading_ , he just _can’t_. Because he isn’t going to raise Kronos. 

He isn’t going to kill Luke. Not now, not ever.

* * *

Ethan manages to avoid Luke for two days, and then Luke corners him again, which, oh,  _fuck him, honestly,_ because Ethan is intent on preserving their friendship–their _sort of_ friendship, or–their…bond, attachment, relationship, mutual sense of caring, their _whatever the hell it is_. And killing Luke isn’t going to _fix_  the cracks in their roads. 

In any case, Luke doesn’t seem to realize this. Or maybe, Ethan thinks, maybe he just doesn’t  _care_. 

They’re in the makeshift living quarters– _emphasis_  on _makeshift_ , because it’s nothing but yet another shitty cavern nestled within the Labyrinth and the only thing that sets _this_  one apart are the bedrolls spread out on the rough, uneven ground–when it happens.

This time, it starts with something else. 

This time, it starts with: “You don’t have to protect me.”

It’s not what Ethan was expecting to hear, and for a second, just a second, it throws him off. His hands go to the laces on his Converse even though they’ve been perfectly tied in double knots since, like, _the creation of Earth_ , but he doesn’t know what else to do. His voice is lost to the musky Labyrinth air.

The daughter of Nike whose name Ethan can never remember smiles at him before brushing past, and he forgets to smile back, and that’s when the atmosphere is generous enough to give his voice back to him.

He takes extra care to school his expression into an empty canvas, bleak and blank and bitterly so. “I’m not protecting _anyone_.” 

“You’re definitely protecting  _me_ ,” says Luke, and coming from him, it almost sounds like an accusation. “The only reason why don’t want to do– _it_ –is because you’re afraid I’ll get hurt.” 

Ethan thinks of something _completely_ unrelated to Kronos, feels the blush rising on his cheeks, and stamps down the feeling immediately. Already, a considerable amount of heads are turning their way, casting them odd looks that Ethan really, _really_  doesn’t like.

He ignores them– _for now_ –and tells Luke, “It doesn’t matter _why_  I’m not going to do it. I just want you to know that the _effect_ is that I won’t do it, regardless of the _cause_.”

Luke drops down beside Ethan, reaches out, and places a hand on his cheek. “What if I asked after your motives?”

Ethan’s breath hitches in his throat. He reminds himself, fervently, that this _isn’t Luke_ , that it’s not him, that he isn’t himself anymore, but it’s _hard_. It’s hard to remember that when Luke’s thumb is tracing the curve of his lips, and–

“Motives?” he asks, even though what he _really_  wants to say is, _What the fuck are you doing?_

“Yeah,” Luke says lowly. “Like– _why_? Why are you trying to shield me from my fate?” 

And _fate_  is such a–it’s such a _word_ , Ethan thinks, it’s something that can be spoken aloud and written on paper and that’s all it is, just a _word_ , but the single syllable holds so much _weight_  that Ethan has to laugh.

Because now he’s aware, he’s _really_  aware, of the reason.

It’s taken him _this long_ , but he’s finally here. He’s finally reached the conclusion and it might be too late to do anything about it.

“You want the long version or the short one?” he asks. 

“Both, I guess.”

And Ethan _was_ sort of hoping Luke would say that, but he takes his smugness, stores it inside a box, and hides it somewhere within his chest so that it doesn’t contaminate his blank canvas of an expression. 

“The long version, then,” he begins carefully,“is that I just–I don’t want you dead. I think I’d miss you. You’re my friend, after all,” but he knows now that _friend_  doesn’t really cut it, so he adds vaguely, “and I like you.” 

“And the short version?” 

Ethan looks around the cavern and remembers that they’re sitting in a room with the rest of the _entire army_. He reaches up and removes Luke’s palm from his cheek. 

“I think,” he decides, “I’ll have to tell you another time.”

* * *

The course of Ethan’s _entire life_  changes within thirty minutes the very next morning when Luke extracts a fucking _handgun_  from his bedside drawer and places it in Ethan’s hands. 

Ethan’s lungs cave in on themselves.

“You know my answer,” he says. The gun is heavy, leaden, in his palms. For a moment, he wonders how Luke got his hands on a modern mortal weapon like this.

He decides he doesn’t want to know. 

“Please,” Luke croaks, and Ethan wants to blame Luke’s tired tone on the early hour, but he knows that he can’t. “He’s getting–he’s getting stronger.” 

“Oh, _is_  he, now?” Ethan spits. “Guess what, Luke? He’ll get _even stronger_  if you let him fucking _possess_  you.”

“No,” says Luke, and he shakes his head, fringe falling into his eyes. “You don’t get it. He’s already inside my head. Ethan, I–I can’t sleep at night.” 

“There are medications for insomnia.” 

“See, _that’s_  where you’re wrong. He _talks_  to me. In my  _head_. He reads my mind and speaks to me and it–it _hurts_.” 

Ethan drinks in the sight of Luke’s tired eyes and disheveled hair and his pursed lips, pulled downwards, and Ethan _believes_  him. 

He wishes–he wishes, he _wishes_  that he didn’t.

“You have to fight him off,” Ethan says, with as much ferocity as he can muster. 

“I _have_  been fighting him off,” Luke counters. “I’ve been _trying_ , but it _hurts_  and I’ve been trying for so long and I’m tired, and–” he stops here to suck in a breath “–and have you seen my _eyes_?” He gestures to them now, and Ethan hates looking, but he does it anyway, he looks, he looks, he _looks_ , until he can’t any longer. “I know you’ve noticed. They’re almost completely golden now, Ethan, and it’s _pretty fucking scary_.”

Ethan’s fingers ghost over the barrel of the gun; the cold, unyielding metal spooks _him_ , too. He doesn’t know how to fire a gun. He doesn’t _want_ to know how to fire a gun. 

“Please.” There it is again: Luke’s pleading gaze and his pleading tone to match, dripping with syrupy desperation. “You have to renounce the gods. Raise Kronos. Lead us to victory. _Save me_.” There’s–there’s _pain_  reflected in Luke’s expression, every crook and corner of it, and Ethan takes a subconscious step back. “You said you would protect me.”

And this is the side of Luke that only a handful of people are aware of. It’s the side that’s doused in–in _shame_ , and it’s the side that no one else has ever _seen_ , except maybe Annabeth Chase and Thalia Grace– _but that’s over now_ –and Ethan is seeing it, too, and…he finds that he doesn’t want to.

But Luke is so _helpless_ – 

And Ethan can see that he’s hurting, can see the pain outlining his every movement, and he might have been born from the god of petty deceptions, but _this_ isn’t petty, nor is it a deception, and Ethan can _see_ that–

“Luke.” His name is heavy as an ocean in Ethan’s mouth. “I can’t–I can’t do this to you.”

Ethan isn’t sure, exactly, how he’s expecting Luke to react, but he _certainly_  isn’t expecting Luke to lean back and close his horrible golden eyes and say, “Then I’ll do it myself.”

He wrenches the gun from Ethan’s grip, or–he _tries_  to, anyway, but Luke has trained him far too well and Ethan sidesteps, dances out of reach easily. He keeps the gun clenched in his grip, makes sure he’s holding it out of Luke’s reach, and shouts, “Alright! _Alright_. Jesus. I’ll do it, alright? _I’ll do it_.”

He’s overcome in a haze of fury, and he isn’t thinking straight, but once he rests the barrel against Luke’s chest, he feels the steady thump of Luke’s life beneath the steel, and he _hesitates_.

There might be a fork in the road, Ethan thinks, but both paths will lead to the same place. The same _end_. Because it doesn’t _matter_  who pulls the trigger. In the end, Luke will _still_  be dead. His body will fall to the ground before Ethan’s feet.

“Luke,” he says again, but this time it’s quiet and barely audible, drowned out by the beating of his own pulse, and by _Luke’s_ pulse, too. 

Luke’s breathing is shallow, ragged. “I know.”

“No, you don’t.” It’s Ethan’s last chance–his last chance to do _anything_. It shouldn’t be like this, he thinks. He would give everything to see a million sunrises with Luke. _It shouldn’t be like this._

But he presses his lips to Luke’s, just once, soft and barely there, before pulling away. He says, “That’s the short version.”

And the realization dawns on Luke, but he doesn’t flinch like Ethan thought he would, doesn’t do _anything_. He’s just… _standing_ there, silent, stoic, his heart beating away beneath Ethan’s hands, beneath the steel barrel of the pistol. 

“Sorry,” Luke whispers. His fingers find Ethan’s on the trigger, and they’re cold with sweat. “I’ll see you soon.” 

In the end, they pull the trigger together.

* * *

There’s nothing left for Ethan to do. 

He renounces the gods. He raises Kronos. He does everything Luke asked him to. 

It’s the least he can manage, after all.

And it was a _mistake_ , but the revelation comes to him too late, too late.

Because Luke is _gone_. 

Maybe he’s been gone for a long time, but now he’s gone _for real_ , and he’s so close, so close, and yet he’s _still_ out of Ethan’s reach. And it’s his own fault. 

Over the course of thirty minutes, he… _changes_. This is what he tells himself: he isn’t going to make the same mistake. Never again. He can’t start over with a clean slate, but he _can_  keep himself from contaminating it even further. 

There’s only one way to achieve this, and so he plans his revolt in secret, in the hours between night and day. The only thing that he _won’t_ do, he tells himself, is kill Luke again. The other boy’s body still _functions_ , but it’s not him, it’s _Kronos_. But, in fleeting seconds, there are moments that suggest otherwise; a flash of blue, a choked, strangled gasp that is definitely _not Kronos_. 

Ethan catches these moments in his palm and holds onto them. 

And so he waits. 

And waits.

And waits.


End file.
